This invention relates to a travelling monitoring system for motor vehicles on which a camera is mounted in order to display an image of the objects which exist in the lateral or rear side of the vehicle on a monitor in the interior of the vehicle during the travelling thereof, more particularly, the system for displaying the travelling information of the vehicle through the retractable monitoring camera which is mounted thereon in such a manner that it may be hiden into or protruded from the vehicle.
In the progressive systems for motor vehicles in the prior art, there have been a motor vehicle-carrying monitoring system which enables the driver to operate for travelling the vehicle without one's depending on the rear-view mirror by monitoring the objects which exist in the lateral or rear side of the vehicle through the monitoring camera mounted thereon as disclosed in a Japanese Open-Laid Publication No. 61-602960 and an motor vehicle-carrying television receiver which is intended to represent a distance relationship with a picture image to be registered by rear monitoring camera on the monitor during one's backing the vehicle up as disclosed in a Japanese Open-Laid Publication No. 60-79889.
These prior arts have replaced the rear-view mirror as monitoring means, which drivers commonly depend on, by a monitoring camera and monitor system, and have enabled to obtain the various travelling information of the vehicle by recording the information onto a recording media through VTR or the like.
In such systems like these prior arts, the monitoring camera may be mounted either on the vehicle body in a projection manner or on the rear side of the vehicle in such a manner like a real upper brake lamp. In the above described cases, there still remains dificulties to protect the camera from the bad weather of snow or rain. While on the occasion which the camera is mounted indoor, there may be involved the dead angle zones due to the narrowing of the view angle resulting in the difficulties of the rearward monitoring.
In addition, when the camera is mounted on the outer of the vehicle, the external appearance is not graceful so as to go against the tendency to high-fashionization in the motor vehicle design as well as the possibility of the burglary of high priced camera become a matter of great anxiety.
Thus, it has been greatly recognized a need to protect the camera from the bad weather of snow or rain and the anger of the burglary, and more required the technology therefor.